FEATURE EDITORIAL

A Compatible Alternative to Microsoft Exchange

When asked, why develop an alternative to Microsoft Exchange? PostPath CEO Duncan Greatwood replies that every market needs an alternative. While Greatwood understands Exchange is a multi-billion dollar market, he believes that people should have a choice. Beyond that, Greatwood notes that IT departments have found Exchange to be expensive, not only the product, but also the other parts of the system that become impacted, such as storage, back-up and restore, high-availability, as well as an increasing requirement for mobile, and big mailboxes.

"To a large extent, Microsoft is a closed world," observes Greatwood. "If you want to do presence with Microsoft, then you have to accept the whole Microsoft package." He goes on to say that organizations may miss out on the gains that have been made around open architectures and standards. "An IT department needs to decide if it wants to be locked into a one-vendor solution." Historically, the switch away from Exchange has been a difficult sell, largely because of the closed system. The Outlook desktops, BlackBerry users, and ActiveSync users, plus the need to co-exist with some of the Exchange environment, makes it difficult to do. "PostPath is unique in that the we offer network protocol interoperability with all of the Microsoft features. For example, Outlook cannot tell the difference between an Exchange server and the PostPath server, similar for BlackBerry. In fact an Exchange server can communicate with a PostPath server," says Greatwood. "This is a huge deal in terms of enabling adoption. Organizations can run a mixed Exchange/PostPath infrastructure or migrate away from Exchange entirely."

According to Greatwood, not only is Exchange 2007 a more complicated product than before, the costs to migrate are high. "The transition costs to move from Exchange 2003 are much higher than people expected." Greatwood offers an example of a customer that has upwards of 100,000 employees that had budgeted US$50,000,000 for migration, but opted to abandon the project because the costs were so much more.

PostPath is a Linux-based file system store. "This makes PostPath much more efficient with storage, it makes back-up and restore much easier, and high-availability easier." Greatwood says these efficiencies allow for the desired big mailboxes. "PostPath can bring the Linux cost structure in storage, in servers, in tools, in manageability, into the enterprise without having to abandon Outlook or other Microsoft enabled applications." Microsoft will remain a market leader. "They will win plenty of customers, and the company is strong in all kinds of ways," concedes Greatwood. "However, we definitely see Exchange 2007 creating a big business opportunity for PostPath, because it is disrupting the existing infrastructure that organizations have with previous Exchange servers. Now organizations are asking themselves if migrating to 2007 is what they really want to do."

Read more about outsourcing options for Microsoft Exchange, by reading the entire cover story (PDF).

Anti-Spyware Product Testing Document for Public Comment

The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC), a group composed of anti-spyware software companies, academics, and consumer groups, has released for public comment a document that promises to help users and reviewers understand the complexities of anti-spyware product testing.

"Public education is a large part of the ASC's mission, and improving the public understanding of anti-spyware product testing will help consumers make informed choices about their software," comments Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology and leader of the ASC. "In addition, public education makes it easier to interpret reviews and testing results."

The Testing Document will be ASC's sixth published working report. It follows others aimed at achieving industry standards for definitions, risk and consent modeling, and best practices for authors of potentially unwanted technologies. The public comment period on the draft definitions continues through April 4th. Information on how to post a comment is available on the ASC Web site. Once the comment period ends, ASC members will release a report on the comments and incorporate them into the group's final document.

MESSAGING NEWS CASE STUDY BRIEF:

Real World Solutions from People in the Trenches featuring Proofpoint, Inc. and Crystal Run Healthcare

Until recently, at Crystal Run Healthcare, any request from a patient, doctor or lawyer to review a medical record required a personal visit to the practice by the requestor—and often the patient—in order to sign forms and obtain a physical copy of the record. While this bureaucratic process protected patient privacy, it mired the medical records department in paperwork and slowed the delivery of information to key constituents. The same problem held true for Crystal Run's administration group, where financial or insurance forms had to be "snail-mailed" in order to receive various signatures.

This week, Proofpoint, Inc., a provider of unified email security and data loss prevention solutions, announced that Crystal Run Healthcare has successfully deployed the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway appliance to defend against inbound spam and virus threats, as well as to prevent leaks of confidential information in outbound email messages, including social security numbers, credit card numbers and patient data.

"Selecting Proofpoint for our email security infrastructure was one of the best decisions I've ever made," said Miguel Hernandez, director of information technology, Crystal Run Healthcare. "Our business runs on email and as a healthcare organization, we have to be especially vigilant about the type of information being transmitted."

In addition to the intelligent management and elimination of spam and viruses, Crystal Run also needed to implement controls over outbound messaging streams to prevent leaks of confidential information and comply with HIPAA regulations that govern the transmission of protected health information (PHI). "The email encryption and regulatory compliance modules worked right out of the box, which has not only ensured our adherence to industry and government standards, but also dramatically accelerated the speed at which we do business," adds Hernandez.

We welcome your ideas and your news for Messaging Newswire’s News & Trends in Email Security. Let us know what you think by sending your comments to editorial@messagingnews.com. Written or compiled by Stephanie Jordan. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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